The Airline Motel sits on Airline Rd. in Muskegon, Mich. It is one of three motels right in row — the Alpine Motel, and the Bel-Aire Motel are further from the highway. The Bel-Aire is quite picturesque, and the Alpine seems recently painted. Therefore, Airline was the obvious choice.

Upon checking in, the clerk asked us if we had a favorite room. We asked him for a recommendation, and he say, “Number 14 will do.”

There were some pretty stiff rules at the motels.

Rule No. 1: Don’t argue with the staff. About anything. Ever.

Rule no. 5: Also true in life.

The room itself had that classic motel smell that I have come to love. Stale cigarettes, the musk of transient slumber and sweat. The doorknob had bashed a whole in the wall, but I like to think the dirty handprints were indicative of this actually being a gloryhole.

The room had a switch to change from normal TV to one grainy porn channel.

I enjoy a movie just as much as the rest of you.

Basically, I’m a master of composition.

We stopped by the Odyssey, where dancers start grinding at 11 a.m. Maybe we will quit our jobs? We also stopped by Cricket’s, where we encountered many Juggalos. It’s true what they say: when you enter the dark carnival, the dark carnival enters you. We also stopped by Mo’z, where we learned line dancing is still a thing! We got back to the motel at about 2:30 a.m., but I was kept up until about 4 by some serious headboard-bashing, high-pitched moaning sex. We probably could have taught them a thing or two about finesse, if you know what I mean.

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Hi. Get in the Car.

Bizarre curiosities, forsaken motels, abandoned cities, underground music, macabre festivals and two fists deep in the strangest of subcultures, Murder Motels is an unending roadtrip through the underbelly of America.